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Games and Competition

Helen Desmond of the United States competes at the 2025 ISMF Ski Mountaineering World Championships on March 6, 2025 in Switzerland.

What Is Skimo? The Newest Olympic Sport Has a Long History in Europe

With roots in military training, high-endurance ski mountaineering is finally catching on in the United States

Fascinating finds unveiled in 2025 ranged from an Auguste Rodin sculpture to a ring bearing the likeness of the goddess Venus Victrix.

Cool Finds

Seventy-Two Fascinating Finds Revealed in 2025, From a Luxury Spa in Pompeii to a Pair of World War I Messages in a Bottle

The year’s most exciting discoveries included the site where a young George Washington stopped a friendly fire incident, the missing torso of a Buddha statue and a hidden Picasso painting

A 2007 photo of Marty Reisman, who loosely inspired Timothée Chalamet's character in Marty Supreme

Based on a True Story

How Marty Reisman, the Real-Life Inspiration Behind ‘Marty Supreme,’ Revolutionized the Sport of Table Tennis

A new film starring Timothée Chalamet as a fictionalized version of Reisman dramatizes the career of a larger-than-life champion

Bonneville is one of the flattest natural runways on the planet, a surface so smooth and open that racers have been coming here for generations to see how far they can push the machines they build.

Rooted in the American West: Food, History and Culture

Meet the Daredevils Chasing Down Speed Records at the Bonneville Salt Flats

Race officials, tinkerers and competitors converge in Utah every fall to test both metal and mettle

The hunt includes around $10,000 worth of treasures, with individual prizes ranging from $300 to $3,500.

A Real-Life Treasure Hunt Is Underway in These American Cities

Stack’s Bowers Galleries is hiding certificates for rare coins and banknotes this month as it celebrates the 90th anniversary of its first auction in October 1935

The piece was carved from local red deer antler.

Cool Finds

A Rare Medieval Hair-Styling Tool Was Found at Scotland’s Eilean Donan Castle

The artifact is part of a large assemblage of excavated artifacts recently acquired by National Museums Scotland

The first-place winner of the 2025 Nikon Small World in Motion Video Competition captures a self-pollinating flower.

Stunning Microscope Videos Highlight Self-Pollination, Algae and Tumor Cells in the Nikon Small World in Motion Contest

The annual video competition focuses on the tiny wonders of the natural world

The figurine is a little more than an inch tall.

Cool Finds

Curator Rediscovers Tenth-Century ‘Portrait’ of a Viking With an ‘Unusual, Ornate Hairstyle’

First unearthed in 1797, the small gaming piece was kept in storage at the National Museum of Denmark for more than 200 years until curator Peter Pentz found it

Real tennis was played indoors, usually in a court with high windows, a sloping roof and a spectators’ gallery.

Why European Royals, From Henry VIII to Louis X, Loved Playing ‘Real Tennis,’ the So-Called Sport of Kings

Modern tennis’ predecessor was a different—and potentially more dangerous—test of athletic prowess

Robots running in the 100 meter finals on August 17, 2025

World’s First ‘Robot Olympics’ Featured Soccer, Kickboxing and Lots of Falling Down

Hundreds of humanoids from 16 countries stumbled over each other while competing in the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing

England has long been considered the birthplace of modern soccer. But new archaeological evidence is challenging that long-held belief.

Where Was Soccer Invented? A New Archaeological Discovery Suggests Scotland, Not England, Was the Sport’s Birthplace

Archaeologists say they’ve found the ruins of a soccer field in southwest Scotland that date to the 17th century

The scroll previously known only as PHerc. 172 was written by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus.

Cool Finds

These Ancient Scrolls Have Been a Tantalizing Mystery for 2,000 Years. Researchers Just Deciphered a Title for the First Time

Mount Vesuvius’ eruption preserved the Herculaneum scrolls beneath a blanket of ash. Two millennia later, X-ray scans show that one of them is a philosophical text called “On Vice”

Tarot deck designed by Austin Osman Spare in 1906

Discover the Renaissance Origins and Mystical Evolution of Tarot Cards

An exhibition at London’s Warburg Institute traces tarot decks’ evolution from the 1450s through the present

The three-inch Flamin' Hot Cheeto was sold in a custom case with a custom Cheetozard Pokémon card.

This Flamin’ Hot Cheeto Is Shaped Like a Pokémon Charizard. It Just Sold for Nearly $90,000 at Auction

The “Cheetozard” resembles an orange dragon-like figure from the popular Japanese franchise. Its seller had purchased it on eBay for $350 in 2019

Ever since it debuted in 2008, the Running of the Reindeer has become one of the signature events of the Fur Rendezvous Festival.

Every March, Runners Race Reindeer Through the Streets of Anchorage

For three and a half blocks, athletes and ungulates share the road during the headlining event of Alaska’s Fur Rendezvous Festival

More than 40 variations are played around the world today, although the core tiles and the way the tiles are shuffled and stacked to begin the game remain the same.

The Asian Game of Mahjong, Which Creates Order Out of Chaos, Is Trending in the West

The 200-year-old tile game is popping up in clubs, hotels and parties as a way for Gen Zers and millennials to connect

Researchers just revealed previously hidden text from a 2,000-year-old scroll called PHerc. 172, which is housed at the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries.

Using A.I., Researchers Peer Inside a 2,000-Year-Old Scroll Charred by Mount Vesuvius’ Eruption

For the past two years, citizen scientists and scholars have been working to reveal the previously hidden texts of the Herculaneum scrolls

Fascinating finds unveiled in 2024 ranged from a jade Maya funerary mask to a Roman dodecahedron.

Cool Finds

Seventy-Seven Fascinating Finds Revealed in 2024, From a Mysterious ‘Anomaly’ Near the Great Pyramid of Giza to a Missing Portrait of Henry VIII

The year’s most exciting discoveries included musket balls fired in the early days of the American Revolution, a lost composition by Mozart and a medieval chess piece

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The Best Books of 2024

The Best Board Games of 2024 Will Excite Players of All Ages

Whether you love cheese, wordplay, “Star Wars” or Japanese culture, this year’s list has something for everyone in what turned out to be a fantastic year for board gamers

On the weekend when Catholics celebrate St. Martin’s Day, the beginning of the “reveling season” of winter, Mirano’s central square is completely transformed into a giant, 16th-century board game.

The Italian Town That Becomes a Giant, Goose-Themed Board Game Each Fall

With teams competing in outlandish physical challenges, the Zogo dell’Oca of Mirano showcases Italy’s flair for invented traditions

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